TVSquad

You guys did awesome last week coming up with Action. See if you can help out on this one...

Debbie Knight asks.

"Hi, I'm hoping someone will be able to help me. I'm a huge fan of horror TV Sitcoms...ie Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt etc...However I'm remembering an episode and can't think where it's from. I'll describe it and hopefully someone here can give me a title and hopefully somewhere where i can watch it. The episode a female Dr. received a severed hand from the police that was from a serial killer who strangled his victims. It was explained to her that the hand seems to still move. As the episode continues murders are being committed in the same fashion as the serial killer. However the end of the episode, her and her boyfriend/husband Dr. are at home he goes in the tub she's waiting for him in bed reading. Well the hand reattaches itself to this decomposing body and the boyfriend Dr. is killed ."

I will never forget being in high school and hearing the news that a new network would soon be premiering. It was only going to be on a couple nights a week, but instead of airing reruns and crappy local shows, it would air all new programs; it was unprecedented.

That network was called FOX, and while many of the programs were of no interest to me, I was really impressed at how they followed through with their promises. Specifically, cutting edge programming and big budgets. I watched Al & Peg Bundy say things that my parents didn't want me to hear. I watched George C. Scott in the only sitcom he ever starred in. Most importantly, I was witness to the phenomenon that became The Simpsons.

Anyone who had a collection of action figures growing up knows you can't have an action figure without the proper weapon. Chewbacca had his crossbow, Cobra Commander had his laser pistol, and the Battlestar Galactica action figures had all kinds of cool weapons. But what about MacGyver? What's the accessory of choice for his mass-produced toy lookalike? The answer, you'll find, is quite obvious. Sure, it may just look like a paper clip, but it's a MacGyver paper clip, which means you can use it for anything. You can open doors, blow up tanks, impregnate spider monkeys, improve your bowling score, go back in time, drill for oil, slice pineapple, raise the dead and many other things. That's power at your fingertips, boys and girls.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't figured it out, the "toy" isn't real.

[via Digg]

(S06E10) Winter break is over folks, and Smallville is back with ... Tori Spelling? Yes, you read (and probably saw) that right. Miss 90210 herself has broken out of Beverly Hills and made her way to Smallville. She brings Clark yet another double L connection, playing snarky gossip columnist Linda Lake who tries to blow the lid on Lex Luthor and Lana Lang (butting heads with Chloe SuLLivan in the process), and Lois Lane thinks that OLLie Queen might be the Green Arrow. Leapin' lizards, there's probably a whole crate of extra Ls being ordered by the production team in order to keep up with everything.

So, with Lana still reeling from Lex's marriage proposal, she's hoping to "revisit her past" to seek answers. Which is female code-word talking for "I'm going to see if there's someone better that I might regret not going out with again, so just hang on for an answer." Of course, poor Clark has to read it on the Daily Planet gossip page, which makes me wonder whatever happened to Perry White and The Inquisitor. This sort of drudge is much more suited for their pages, not for the newspaper of Metropolis.

My generation grew up with GI Joe, Voltron, Thundercats and He-Man, so we're not exactly strangers to action-based cartoons, but we also had reruns of Looney Tunes shorts and early Hanna-Barbera (Tom and Jerry, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, etc). These days, it seems cartoons are all about action, and those old cartoons have either disappeared completely, or have become more difficult to find (Boomerang excluded). It's quite a shame, because my own nieces and nephew, regardless of being generations removed from the likes of Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry, absolutely love those old cartoons. Sure, they still love Avatar: The Last Airbender and Shaolin Showdown, but they also know what funny is.

Nevertheless, someone, somewhere felt that Bugs and his pals needed to cash in on the popularity of anime and anime-inspired action cartoons, and the result was Loonatics Unleashed, a cartoon set in the future, featuring descendants of the classic Looney Tunes characters with super powers and crazy gadgets and weapons. The first season will be out on DVD this March, and if you see your kids walking towards it in the store, I suggest you kick them towards the classic Golden Collection DVD sets instead.

When the hell did these two start going out? I knew she wasn't going out with Bobcat Goldthwait any longer (they were engaged several years back - yes, that Bobcat Goldthwait), but I didn't know that she and Mohr were an item (God, if I ever type the phrase "an item" when referring to a couple again...ugh. What, am I part of US Weekly or something?).

Another magazine, People, is reporting that Mohr and Cox were married in Los Angeles on Friday night. No official word yet from either camp.

Mohr was the former host of NBC's Last Comic Standing and a former cast member of Saturday Night Live, not to mention the star of the criminally short-lived sitcom Action. A couple of years ago he wrote the book Gasping For Airtime. Nikki Cox is currently on Las Vegas and costarred in the underrated sitcom Unhappily Ever After.

What's not to love about Illeana Douglas - granddaughter of two-time Oscar winner Melvyn Douglas, Scorsese regular, indie filmmaker and brilliant-but-canceled Action co-star? Alright, I didn't love her hippy-dippy appearance on Lisa Loeb's #1 Single, but I'll give her a pass because she was so great in To Die For, which was written by one of my heroes - Buck Henry.

Illeana is making television news this week with the YouTube premiere of her show Illeanarama. The pilot episode features Douglas, Christopher Guest regular Jane Lynch and Justine Bateman as herself. The premise is cute so long as you're not offended by rich people finding humor in what it would be like for them to live among the great unwashed. Illeana dumps her Hollywood career for life as a grocery story clerk. Once word gets out that working for a living is the hottest fashion statement (like adopting a third world babies?), more celebrities appear on the scene. Future episodes will feature Gene Wilder, Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. For the time being, you can only see them online care of Zeitbyte.

Every Tuesday here on TV Squad , we will highlight the week's TV-on-DVD releases. Some noteworthy releases today, February 21, 2006:

• 3rd Rock from the Sun - Season 3
• Action - The Complete Series
• The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin - Volume 01: The Journey Begins; Volume 02: The Journey Continues
• The Dick Cavett Show - Comic Legends
• Goof Troop - Volume 1
• The Irish R.M. - Series 3
• NYPD Blue - The Complete 3rd Season
• Quack Pack - Volume 1
• Redwall - Season 1
• SpongeBob SquarePants - Lost In Time
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - Season 1, Vol 1
• What's New Scooby-Doo? - Vol 8: Zoinks, Camera, Action!